Blockchain-based Ripple has announced the addition of seven new financial institutions as its technology partners.

According to the company’s insights, Santander, UniCredit, UBS, ReiseBank, CIBC, National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD), and ATB Financial are the banks that will adopt Ripple in order to improve their cross-border payments.

The announcement comes after Santander became the first U.K. bank to use Ripple for cross-border payments last year.

“This is a major step forward for the global financial system, and as the Ripple network grows, together we are paving the way for new connected commerce opportunities and growing demands for real-time, high volume, low-value global payments,” Ripple CEO Chris Larsen said.

Ripple being the only provider of enterprise blockchain solutions; its global network includes 12 of the top 50 global banks, ten banks in commercial deal phases and more than 30 bank pilots being completed using Ripple’s solutions.

“Blockchain and related technologies are a paradigm shift from the status quo and increasingly a major focus of innovation for us. That’s why we’re committed to moving beyond the lab and testing environments,” Paolo Cederle, CEO of UniCredit Business said. Talking about the current partnership with Ripple, he added, “Through our partnership with Ripple, we are optimizing our global payments and one of the first major banks to implement distributed financial technology in a commercial setting.”

During Payments Panorama conference last week in Calgary, Ripple demonstrated a live transfer of funds between ATB Financial bank and ReiseBank. The demo showed the settlement of transaction within seconds between these banks located on two continents, with clear fees.

Last month, Ripple said that it could team up with financial technology innovation company R3CEV which is leading a blockchain consortium of over 40 global financial institutions.

Ripple is a venture-backed startup with offices in San Francisco, New York and Sydney. It provides global financial settlement solutions to enable the world to exchange value like it already exchanges information – giving rise to an Internet of Value (IoV). Ripple solutions lower the total cost of settlement by enabling banks to transact directly, without correspondent banks, and with the real-time certainty of settlement.